The Road to Warhammer Fest 2023 - part 5, The Tangled Depths

I mentioned in part 3 of this blog post series I had booked a ticket for The Tangled Depths at Warhammer World on 18th March 2023. That day finally came and it was absolutely amazing!

I'm going to post about it a few times - this first one is about my experience of the event, the next ones will be narrative reports of the battles:

• Part 1, Themed box for counters, ruler, combat gauges, cards and dice.
• Part 2, Themed Warcry Dashboard
• Part 3, planning the Gnarlwood Encampment Mini display board
• Part 4, building the Gnarlwood Encampment Mini display board
• Part 5, The Tangled Depths
• The Tangled Depths - part i, Down Into the Depths
• The Tangled Depths - part ii, The Lair of the Lizard
• The Tangled Depths - part iii, The Bloodfane
• The Tangled Depths - part iv, The City of the Dead
• Part 6, The Warhammer Fest Warcry Rumble

I've been to WHW a couple of times, and I've played in a few tournaments, but this was my first my first competitive event at Warhammer World. It was also my first Warcry tournament - it might already be evident that I'm not big on competitive play, but I played with a narrative mindset and tried not to worry about my overall score.

Warhammer World is two a hour drive from where I live, but it was raining and I had no idea what traffic would be like on a Saturday morning, so I set off with two and a half hours before the 9am start time for registration.

Traffic and weather did not effect the travel time and I arrived at 8:30am! Still, lots of time for coffee and chatting in Bugman's after registration.

They used Best Coast Pairings for registration (and pairing, and score submissions), which I didn't know about in advance so I was a bit worried. But it was quick and easy to register, and I have since gone back and filled out my profile there. I have no idea if I will ever need it again, but it's done now anyway.

My Ironjawz warband for the day was:

Dagger

Warchanter - Krashhart [180pts] Leader

Brute with Gore-hacka - Leeway Ruk [150pts]

Hammer

Weirdnob Shaman - Old Mudgob [170pts] Hero

Ardboy with Choppas - Docker Goff [80pts]

Brute with Choppas - Lugger Dag [140pts]

Shield

Brute with Choppas - Hook [140pts]

Brute with Choppas - Yardarm Gark [140pts]

+++

Game 1

No Quarter, against Jade Obelisk (Alex) on a Gnarlwood board.

Tournament Quest: The Champion

Dagger

Desecrator with Iconoclast Warpick [100pts]

Defacer with Stonecutter Tools [95pts]

Mindstealer Sphiranx (Ally) [260pts]

Hammer

Desecrator with Iconoclast Warpick [100pts]

Defacer with Stonecutter Tools [95pts]

Shield

Nephrite Priestess [105pts] Leader

Obelisk Bearer [110p]

Desecrator with Statue-smasher Hammer [100pts]

This was a great start to the day! Alex was friendly and chatty and the game was fun and close-run.

In round two I killed a Desecrator and a Defacer.

In round three I killed the Obelisk Bearer but lost my Warchanter, my Shaman and my Ardboy.

In round four I lost a Brute but didn't manage to kill anything.

At nearly the end of round four we each held one board quarter but his last activation moved his Mindstealer into my quarter took control to 1:0, and with that won the game.

Major Loss (lost the game and killed less than half his warband) = zero Tournament Points.

Game 2

The Hidden Vault, against Seraphon (Fred) on a Gnarlwood board with a Megadroth Remains skeleton in the centre.

Tournament Quest High Ground

Dagger

Slann Starmaster [265pts] Leader 

Saurus Guard [120pts]

Hammer

Saurus Guard [120pts]

Saurus Guard [120pts]

Skink Handler [70pts]

Shield

Salamander [135pts]

Skink Handler [70pts]

Skink Handler [70pts]

Predictably we both burned each-other's objectives; I removed the one on his side in round one and he removed the one on mine in round two, leaving just the centre one.

I knew I needed to focus for this game to go my way. I sent everything I had into the middle to get that objective. Well... everything except my Ardboy, who scampered off up a tree to try to get a point for my chosen Tournament Quest for this game. I tried to avoid fighting anything that wasn't in the 3" radius of the centre.

His Slann started on the highest point on the board and blasted my models with impunity - I had nothing with the range to return fire, so it felt like he was trying to deny a huge area of the board to me, including the centre. It also looked like it would inadvertently stop me completing my Tournament Quest. The Slann took out my Shaman in round two and a Brute in round three.

At the end of round three I had the only models on the central objective and I now controlled it. Victory was only to be secured by controlling the final objective in the fourth round. But I had a plan...

In round four I made sure I had a Triple at the start of the round, with a very specific ability in mind; I only rolled a Double but I used a Wild dice. It took all my focus to constantly remember not to use the Triple on anything else before my last activation!

The Slann moved down from the rope bridge and toward the centre, to help contest the objective, as I had killed all of the Saurus Guards and I had a whole load of orruks crowding-in.

At this point I started to worry about my understanding of the objective rule. I didn't want to make my big final play of this game and "cheat" my opponent if I was wrong. I was 99% certain going in, but when it came to the crisis moment of round four I was down to 60/40. I asked for a judge and they confirmed that an objective controlled in a previous round stayed in the same player's control until another player takes control of it, and (critically) that having the same number of fighters near the objective is not enough to do that - it has to be a greater number of fighters.

The Slann killed another Brute and all the Skinks moved in to swarm the objective. It looked like he was going to take it!

Then I played my ace - I used my precious Triple on the Ironjawz ability You Messin' in my last activation. This prevented his skinks from contesting the objective, so I held on to it and won the battle.

And I had completed my Quest because the Ardboy was the only model on a treetop platform.

Major Win! Plus one point for completing my Tournament Quest = 21 Tournament Points.

+++

During the breaks between games there was plenty of time to eat lunch (in the GW HQ staff canteen rather than in Bugmans - access granted by our event lanyards), socialise with the other players (I knew a couple from online interactions and Ed from real life - he's "Maps", from the Animosity campaigns Discord - but I also chatted with a few others), and look round the shop. Our event lanyards also gave us free access to the exhibition but I had forgotten that at the time.

During the lunch break there was the Best Warband vote while all the entered warbands were in the main gaming hall cabinets.

+++

A digression:

In the cabinet next to our warbands there was a small display of some things from The Conquest of the Savage Lands - a Path to Glory AoS campaign weekend from October 2022. From what I saw on social media that event was absolutely incredible. The physical props and accessories that all players were given on the day are amazing - Amberbone claw trophies, artefact cards, metal Coin Malleus tokens, even the event pack folder, all looked top-notch. There was also a selection of the map-location markers used in the campaign - beautifully kit-bashed from Warhammer bits, but built and painted in a "micro" map scale (The amazing 3D campaign map was not on display, but I nabbed photos of it from Twitter.)

I would love to go to a narrative campaign event like this for Warcry!

+++

Back to the Tangled Depths:

There were some really beautiful warbands being used. I couldn't get good photos in the cabinets, but the staff there did, so I have swiped a few of my favourites from the WHW Facebook page. (There are more photos on that linked Facebook post.) I have also used the WHW photos of the warbands I faced in battle with each game summary.

And this is WHW's photo of the pirate Ironjawz warband I used on the day: The Swordfyshes.

+++

Refreshed and revitalised after lunch: back into the fighting!

Game 3

Reaper, against Bloodbound (Matthew) on a Cursed City themed board.

Tournament Quest: Overrun

Dagger

Wrathmaster [210pts] Leader 
Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades [65pts]

Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades [65pts]:

Hammer

Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades [65pts]

Chaos Lord [210pts] Allied Hero

Shield

Fatemaster [255pts] Allied Hero

Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades [65pts]

Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades [65pts]

Knowing this battleplan was all about taking the enemy out of action I primarily focused on the easy kills, with a secondary eye on stopping his hardest-hitters returning the favour.

In round one I killed a single Bloodreaver (65 Kill Points) - but it was the only kill of the round, so I got the Victory Point.

In round two I killed three Bloodreavers and the Chaos Lord (405 Kill Points) and only lost a Brute (140 Kill Points) - another Victory Point to me.

In round three I lost another Brute and the Warchanter (320 KP) and only killed a single Bloodreaver (65 Kill Points) - the VP for the round went to Matthew. I felt like I made good use of the reaction Counter against the Wrathmaster - that madlad gets so many attack dice he was bound to hit himself with those whirling chains a few times at least!

In the fourth round neither of us killed anything!

As expected for this battleplan there was an absolute meatgrinder in the centre of the (absolutely beautiful!) board, but I managed to scrape-by and win 2:1 on VP. Matthew tied-up my Hammer battlegroup (the Shaman, Ardboy and Brute) with three cheap Bloodreavers in the hope to exchange them 2-for-1 but it was 3-for-none to me in that fight. Taking down his Chaos Lord also took the tank out of his fight for the centre until the Wrathmaster could join in, in round three.

No Quest point this time (mainly as I completely forgot about it) but killing 6 out of 8 of his warband made it a Major Win and 20 Tournament Points.

+++

Game 4

Ley Lines, against Soulblight Gravelords (Ash)

Tournament Quest: Hold the Centre

Dagger

Abhorrent Arch Regent [205pts] Allied Hero

Skeleton Captain with Halberd [75pts]

3x Skeleton with sword [40pts]

Hammer

Vyrkos Blood-Born [135pts]

3x Skeleton with spear [40pts]

Shield

Vampire Lord [225pts] Leader

3x Skeleton with spear [40pts]

(I think we got the deployment points mixed-up for this one; we somehow rotated them all 90 degrees round the board! But since they were still symmetrical I'd sure it was still fair.)

Even though I killed the Vampire before she had a chance to raise any of their casualties, there seemed to be thousands of skeletons everywhere throughout the whole game! Ash completely swamped every objective as they were Awakened and scored 12VP to my 1.

Docker Goff was the MVP of this fight - he stood by the Shaman and absorbed so many attacks, even though he has the lowest number of wounds in the warband. Blind luck kept him alive for two more rounds than is statistically believable!

Major loss, no Quest = Zero Tournament Points

Fantastic game though.

+++

And that was that.

Last game played, warbands packed up. All that was left was the awards announcements and it would be time to start the two hour drive home, in the dark and the rain.

But I had gone to this event expecting to lose all my games and I had just planned to enjoy playing Warcry, regardless of the results. Four awesome games against four very cool dudes means I was already successful in my own goals, so winning two of them made it just that little bit better.

And then Steve Wren started to announce the results....

I was so giddy when he said I had won the players' vote for Best Warband! I walked up to the front not quite processing what was happening. I was going to come away with a trophy!? I couldn't believe it! I didn't really pay any attention to what Steve was saying after that.

Then I was suddenly aware that my name had been said again. I stared at the big screen for a moment before I processed that too - I got a another trophy?! I had come third place overall?!?

Two votes for Favourite Opponent and three for Favourite Warband from my four opponents mean that I scored an additional 50 Tournament Points - taking my total to 91!

Look at these lovely hunks of glass! What an amazing day. I'm still giddy now and really really looking forward to Warhammer Fest. Six weeks is going to feel like a very long time...